Sept 20 (Reuters) - Police fatally shot a man in the parking
lot of a Charlotte, North Carolina apartment complex on Tuesday
after he got out of his car armed with a gun as officers
approached him, authorities said.

Local media reported that after the shooting, relatives of
the slain man confronted police at the scene and a crowd of
several dozen people quickly gathered to protest.

WSCOC-TV said that demonstrators blocked a road leading to
the apartment complex as police in riot gear stood by.

The incident came amid an intense ongoing national debate
over the use of deadly force by police.

Officers from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department
were at an apartment complex searching for a suspect with an
outstanding warrant shortly before 4 p.m. when they saw a man
get out of his vehicle with a firearm, public affairs officer
Keith Trietley said in a written statement.

"Officers observed the subject get back into the vehicle at
which time they began to approach the subject. The subject got
back out of the vehicle armed with a firearm and posed an
imminent deadly threat to the officers who subsequently fired
their weapon striking the subject," Trietley said.

The victim, identified by police as 43-year-old Keith Lamont
Scott, was transported to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte,
where he was pronounced dead, according to Trietley.

Police did not immediately say if Scott was the suspect they
had originally sought at the apartment complex. WSOC-TV reported
that he was not.

A man identified by WCNC-TV as the victim's brother told the
station that the officer involved in the shooting was undercover
and not wearing a uniform.

"I think he shot him four times, I'm not sure but he's
dead," the man told WCNC. The station did not identify him by
name.

Police recovered the gun that the subject was holding at the
time of the shooting and witnesses were being interviewed,
Trietley said.

The officer who shot Scott was identified as Bradley Vinson,
who has been on the force since July 2014.

Trietley said the department's internal affairs bureau would
conduct a separate investigation and that Vinson had been placed
on administrative leave.

In August, a 29-year-old deaf driver from Charlotte was
fatally shot by a North Carolina State Highway Patrol trooper
during a traffic stop.

The state's top safety official has said that incident was
being reviewed by the district attorney, the Highway Patrol and
State Bureau of Investigation.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie
Adler and Peter Cooney)